


arise and go (1963)

by Kells



Series: AAUs for fun and flexibility [3]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: 1960s AAU, Cold War, F/M, Female Steve Rogers, Hospitals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 12:44:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10899603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kells/pseuds/Kells
Summary: a.k.a. the escape to ireland





	arise and go (1963)

**Author's Note:**

> this one for UchinanchuDuckie with all the gratitude in the world. I really didn't think we could keep this going for three _years_ and I'm sure it's in large part because your visuals suck me back in when I'm running out of words.

Stephanie’s first thought, when she woke up to the slightly fuzzy sight of Peggy Carter leaning over her, brows knit, was that she was dreaming. Her second thought had her wide awake and bolt upright.

“What happened? Is he-?”

“Your husband’s fine,” Peggy assured her, but her eyes were worried. “I need you to trust me, all right?”  

She’d only saved their lives a dozen times or more even if they didn’t count the ice or everything that had come after that.

“Of course.”

Steph watched, not quite comprehending, as Peggy went about disconnecting the various tubes and wires they had been told were mostly responsible for keeping her alive. “He knows, though. That we’re doing this.”

Peggy raised an eyebrow.

“Does any part of this look like it might have been my idea?”

Steph chuckled softly- over the last year, Bucky and Howard had outlined so many hypothetical escape plans that started with breaking Steph out of hospital in the dead of night that Peggy had threatened to start a file categorized by relative likelihood of getting one or both of them blown up. “Besides which I’m not quite reckless enough to take any risks with your health without his express approval.”

They both remembered Dr Ruskin; Steph was still giggling quietly when Peggy gripped her right hand with purpose.

“Ready? We’re going to have to move quickly after this.”

She waited for Steph to nod before pulling the last long needle free. “There we go. Now-”

It was only when Peggy glanced at the screen on the wall, so familiar a sight that Steph had more or less forgotten it had ever been there, that she realised the display was still tracking her pulse, platelet count and whatever else it was her doctors seemed to think they needed constant feedback about.

“How on earth-“

“Most SHIELD technology begins life at Stark Industries.”

That- made a kind of sense. “It won’t last long. Here, we don’t need you running about barefoot on top of everything else.”

With Peggy’s help, Steph staggered to her feet and into the sandals her friend had thought to bring.  

“That’s better. Lean on me if you need to, all right?”

She shouldn’t have to, Steph thought rebelliously- but it had been months since they’d let her out of bed even with Bucky right there to make sure nothing went wrong. She stumbled along, letting Peggy guide her as briskly as they could manage through the darkened corridors of the medical outpost that had been her home for so long until, quite expectedly, they were outside.

“Oh,” Steph murmured, steps flagging as the cool evening breeze hit her face for the first time in months. “Peggy-”

“I know.”

Peggy tightened her arm around Steph in a brief, bracing hug. “We really have to keep moving, Steph.”

And so they did, slipping around the back and between the hedges, along a narrow, uneven dirt track which would have been a challenge even if it hadn’t also been pitch dark and more or less completely unknown to both of them. Steph was struggling to breathe evenly by the time they reached a break in the trees.   

“Peggy, I can’t-”

“Easy, honey.”

Her husband appeared as if plucked out of the ether, suddenly right there on Steph’s other side. “You’re doing so well.”

“Bucky.”

She had no clear recollection of flinging herself at him, but in very little time she was pressed as close as she could get, smiling widely against his dark jacket as he stroked her hair and bickered with Peggy like he’d been doing since 1943.  

“I’m _sure_ we agreed that you’d wait in the car.”

“She’s not well, though.”

He barely seemed to move, but suddenly her feet were off the ground and muscle memory more than any conscious thought saw Steph adjusting her grip on his shoulders so she wouldn’t choke him as he lifted her carefully into his arms. “Poor brave Stephanie of mine.”

It had been so long since they’d even let him call.  

“I love you,” Steph whispered, curling into him protectively- she hadn’t missed the barely-there quaver in his voice. “Missed you every second, J.”

He kissed her hair instead of answering. Peggy gave a little half-sigh that sounded more amused than irritated but definitely had the seeds for both.  

“I’ll go on ahead, then, shall I? Tell Howard to get his skates on.”

Bucky’s grin was in his voice as well.

“That guy was _born_ with his skates on.”

Peggy was still rolling her eyes as she stepped to the side to kiss Steph’s forehead as if she were dealing with a child.  

“We’ll see you soon, all right? Look after each other.”

“‘s what we do,” Steph agreed; she felt her husband nod from close behind her.

“Thank you.”

Peggy’s smile was very nearly tender.

“My pleasure, Colonel.”

He chuckled as she turned on her heel.  

“One day she’ll remember I have a name. You warm enough?”

“C’mere,” Steph muttered, and kissed him soundly. He was grinning when she let him up.

“I’m gonna take that as a yes.”

Bucky tucked her closer, kissed her temple, and took off more or less at a run. They would never have made it without him, Steph thought- he had covered at least another mile by the time she made out the shadowy figure leaning far too casually against a car she’d never seen before.

“There she is.”

Howard's beaming grin could have rivalled the headlights he'd turned off in an effort at secrecy that seemed mostly moot on the empty road. “You look better already, sweetheart.”

“Feel better too,” Steph agreed, resting her cheek against her husband’s shoulder. She blinked, then tilted her head back to frown up at him. “Why do I feel better?”

Howard opened the passenger door with a flourish.

“You’d better let him tell you on the go. Look after this kid, okay?”

Stephanie grinned at him over Bucky’s shoulder as he fussed over settling her in the car.

“Thanks for keepin’ an eye on him for me.” 

Howard looked almost shy.

“Any time, Mrs. Barnes.”

Bucky shut the door gently, then turned to say his own goodbye.

“Tell your boy we love him. Not just tonight- tell him so he remembers, understand?”

Howard nodded, clearing his throat roughly.  

“We’ll see you soon, I promise.”

“Be careful.”

“You too, ace.”

Their handshake turned into a hug, quick but heartfelt, and then Howard was disappearing along the half-forested path as Bucky draped a blanket over Steph’s shoulders as ceremoniously as if she were some kind of monstrance.

“We runnin’ away to Alaska?”

He shrugged, not quite defensive.

“You’re gonna want that window open all night, aren’t you?”

As he turned the key, Steph realised with a start that it was the first time she’d ever seen her husband drive a car. It wasn’t the only question she hadn’t thought she’d get to ask.

“Aren’t you s’posed to be in Vietnam?”

He stiffened, but subtly- the idiots he worked with might have missed it, maybe, but not his wife who’d loved him her whole life.

“I guess I am.”

He was staring straight ahead, not really because he was afraid they’d run into unexpected traffic. Steph studied his face in profile for a moment.

“You sayin’ you went AWOL for me, Colonel?”

He took her hand and held it gently between them.

“You see this, right?”

She wasn’t sure she did, but followed his gaze to watch her pale hand, still trembling in his careful grasp. “You never used to get the shakes, you know. Not like this.”

His voice was soft, verging on sorrowful. It took Stephanie longer than it should have to understand what he was getting at.  

“It’s not the serum, you mean.”

He raised their joined hands and kissed her fingertips because he was still and always would be a giant sap.

“I really don’t think it is, Steph.”

They’d seemed so sure, though- a whole team of doctors, gathered at her bedside practically from the day she’d opened her eyes to find it was _20 years_ since Schmidt and the Tesseract had sunk them somewhere in the Arctic, and where her husband seemed no worse for wear SHIELD couldn’t guarantee that Steph would ever be quite herself again.

“But why would they-”

Except she already knew the answer. “You think they’ve been doing this on purpose, to keep us close.”

To keep him at their beck and call, she meant- because of course Bucky hadn’t thought twice about signing on again, regardless of their cause, because _his_ cause was to keep her safe and they’d known that well before either of them had opened their eyes in this new, crueler decade. Bucky nodded slowly.

“That’s what Howard said.”

He turned to catch her eye. “Thank _God_ they had nothing to do with it, Steph.”

She hadn’t even thought of that. Steph squeezed his hand as hard as she could.

“How’d you-”

She was distracted by a terrible lurching crash in the distance. Steph whipped around in time to see the bright tongues of flame already licking at the building she’d been slowly losing hope of ever being allowed to leave. They’d left their friends heading straight for it.

“Bucky-”

“They’re fine, I promise.”

He was smiling, mostly to himself. “Big man’s been looking forward to that bang for maybe a month now. Your Peggy’ll have made sure they stayed well clear.”

He still had his eyes on the road, giving no sign at all that he even realised there was a growing conflagration rising at the edge of his field of vision.

“Bucky,” Steph said, slowly and deliberately. “What did you do?”

“Killed us both a second time, I hope.”

When she didn’t answer immediately, he turned to her with contrite eyes. “I should’ve talked to you first, I know, but-”

He faltered, swallowed hard.

“I really think you’ll be safer with me, Steph, and if not- if I’m wrong at least we’ll be together, you know?”  

“Thank you.”

Her voice was choked as well, now- she couldn’t imagine what it must have cost him to make a decision like that all on his own. “Can you- I need you to stop. Just for a minute.”

He pulled over like she wanted, so she could kiss him like she needed- until they were _both_ breathless and emotional and totally unlike the military heroes SHIELD had planned to salvage on Howard Stark’s behalf.

“A chéadsearc, go raibh maith agat.”

Bucky smiled with tears still in his eyes.

“I’ve missed you like you wouldn't believe, Stephanín.”

 She kissed him again, mostly to prove he didn’t have to miss her anymore.

“I would, you know. I guess we can’t go back to New York, huh.”

Her husband shook his head, regretful.

“I’m sorry.”

“Hush,” Steph ordered, trying to look stern. “Long’s you come with me I don’t give one damn where we go.”

“You might give one little damn or two."

He was smiling again. "I’ve got plane tickets for London, see, and train tickets all the way up north to Scotland, and -”

“And ferry tickets to cross the Mersey,” Steph realised. Bucky nodded, watching her face like he really thought she might refuse to go with him.

“And then I thought we’d just drive, you know? As far west as we can go, maybe, and then a little to the south of that.”

They were the directions his mother had given them when they were maybe four years old. “If that sounds-”

“Perfect,” Steph murmured, making a show of nestling comfortably in the passenger seat. “It sounds perfect, if we’re still on time for that flight.”

He caught her hand and kissed her knuckles, apparently for no other reason than that he could.

“I’ll get us there, you'll see.”

She wasn’t the one who’d ever doubted that, Steph thought. Bucky smiled under the weight of her heavy-lidded scrutiny. “Sleep, a chroí. I’ll be right here.”

She let her eyes fall shut, savouring the nearness of him, and was still listening to him breathe when he turned and whispered a promise she knew she wasn’t meant to hear.

“I’m gonna keep you safe,” her husband vowed, not really for Steph’s benefit at all. “Swear to God I’ll kill anyone who comes for you this time.”

He’d been alone so long, Steph thought tenderly, but resisted the urge to open her eyes and swear on anything he cared to name that she’d do the same and more for him.

On the tarmac, though, she took his hand- firmly so he could see for himself how much steadier she felt already- and kissed him harder than he'd thought she could. She was still smiling as they took their leave of the army, and the SSR, and everything else about the lives they’d thought would be theirs for the long term.


End file.
